1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic apparatus provided with many operating elements, and a computer-readable medium containing a program for implementing a control method of the electronic apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
Electronic apparatuses provided with many operating elements have hitherto been known in general.
As the electronic apparatus like this, there has been an electronic musical instrument provided with many tone color selecting switches (for example, refer to Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2005-4082). In this conventional electronic musical instrument, when the user operates one tone color selecting switch to select one tone color, a state is obtained in which musical tones having the selected tone color can be generated. That is, the tone color selecting switch corresponding to the selected tone color changes to a “valid” state; the other tone color selecting switches change to an “invalid” state.
Also, in electronic musical instruments of conventional art, there is generally used a construction which assigns many functions to one operating element and thereby allows the one operating element to be shared by many functions. For example, to an increment/decrement switch, there is assigned a function of increasing/decreasing the tempo of automatic performance when a tempo setting mode is selected; there is assigned a function of increasing/decreasing the volume of automatic performance when a volume setting mode is selected.
Further, in the ordinary electronic apparatuses provided with many operating elements, the name of assigned function is usually displayed (printed) in the vicinity of each operating element to indicate what type of function has been assigned to each operating element. And when the user operates an operating element and thus the operative state of the electronic apparatus is changed, that state is usually displayed on a display. In this manner, an arrangement is made so that the function or state of an operating element attracts user's visual attention.
However, in the above described electronic apparatuses of conventional art, the function or state of an operating element is visually displayed, so it is difficult for a visually-handicapped user to perceive the function or state of an operating element before operating the operating element. Even the user like this may perceive the function or state related to an operating element only after the operating element has been operated. However, when an operating element is operated, the state of the electronic apparatus also changes (for example, in the above described electronic musical instrument of conventional art, the tone color or tempo changes); accordingly, when the user does not desire the change of state of the electronic apparatus, this is significantly inconvenient.